


Wendy

by belivaird_st



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 15:25:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15821682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belivaird_st/pseuds/belivaird_st
Summary: Abby brings over and introduces a new girlfriend she met near a spooky asylum.





	1. Chapter 1

Carol pressed the pads of her thumbs onto the base of Therese’s collarbone and rubbed them in tiny circles with a cigarette jutting out from the corner of her mouth. She was sitting on the edge of the couch in the living room giving Therese a massage, who had her eyes shut and her head bowed, sitting cross-legged on the floor below. 

“How are you feeling? Any better?” Carol spoke softly. She squeezed both shoulders before tracing the younger woman’s back with her nails.

“Mm,” Therese responded. Her head swayed further down making most of her hair fall loosely around her jawline. She was so relaxed tonight. Carol was doing such a good job...

“You’ve worked so hard today,” Carol sighed, digging her thumbs further into Therese again. “My tough little cookie...”

“I’m the tough one, she’s the cookie!” spoke a familiar sharp voice coming from the foyer. Both Carol and Therese looked up to see Abby standing inside their house wearing a pink tweed blazer and mid-calf dress. She was accompanied by another young looking woman dressed in a lime green blouse, green nylon stockings, and plaid skirt. She smiled awkwardly towards both women and waved them a hello.

“Darling,” Carol gushed, removing her cigarette out from her mouth to crush it away quickly into the ashtray on the coffee table. “If I only knew you were coming-”

“This was a surprise visit,” Abby cut off. “I would like you to meet my girl, Wendy Peyser...”

“Hi,” Wendy greeted shyly. 

“Hello, sweetheart,” Carol said, rising up to stretch her legs while Therese just sat there, unblinking. The mother moved across the living room over to Abby’s new girlfriend to give her a polite kiss on the cheek and friendly handshake. 

“You must be Carol,” Wendy smiled, taking in Carol’s beauty and grace. “Abby has told me so much about you. How the two of you met and such.”

“Aww,” Carol cooed, watching Abby roll her eyes with a grin. 

Therese picked herself off the floor and smoothed out her solid lilac dress. She walked toward the others quietly, letting Carol throw an arm around her tiny shoulders. 

“Therese Belivet, Carol’s honeybee,” Abby introduced. “She’s soft and fuzzy that can leave you stinging mad for about an hour or so.”

“Well, no,” Therese murmured, reaching her hand out for Wendy’s to shake it politely.

“Therese,” Wendy repeated her name. “What a lovely, pretty name.”

“Would you like something to drink?” Carol offered. “Go fix us some lemonade, my sweet darling honeybee,” she instructed Therese, giving her a playful slap on the bottom.

Abby and Wendy followed Carol into the living room to sit down while Therese made her way into the kitchen, chewing her bottom lip. As she grabbed and set all four glasses down on a serving tray while dropping ice cubes into each of them with a metal pair of tings, she listened carefully to Abby telling Carol how she and Wendy first met.

“It was near this asylum called Briarcliff,” Abby was saying. “My car broke down across the road with a flat tire. These two nuns came running over to help me out, and Wendy, who doesn’t even drive, was coming towards the opposite direction from us, walking her way home from school-”

“I’m a teacher,” Wendy informed.

“We took one look at each other, and it was love at first sight,” Abby concluded.

The ice cubes clinked loudly into the glass cups. Therese placed the tongs down and opened the Frigidaire to pull the jug of lemonade out. As she poured the sugary sweet liquid, she heard Abby, or was it Wendy? That said something, and made Carol laugh. Curious, Therese thought about Abby’s odd story about the asylum and the two nuns. She had her own share of them, but that was so long ago...


	2. Chapter 2

More laughter erupted from the other side of the apartment as Therese picked up the serving tray and carried the drinks out of the kitchen. She made her way through the living room to find Carol leaning over to light Wendy a cigarette that was stuck between her mouth. Abby was sitting on one side of the couch balancing her cigarette between her fingers with her ankles crossed while Therese carefully set the tray of lemonade down on the coffee table.

“I was just about to go more in detail on the day how Wendy and I first met. Would you like to hear the story, Therese?” Abby questioned, flicking ash with her thumbnail.

“Alright,” Therese said uneasily, handing both Carol and Wendy a glass before taking her own glass to sit on the piano bench.

“It’s a very cute story,” Wendy spoke with her cigarette bobbling up and down. “The nuns were so different from each other, but they were extremely helpful, right honey?”

“Yes,” Abby replied.

“Go on, let’s hear it,” Carol urged, flipping back her hair while bringing her lemonade juice close to her lips.

Abby tapped more ash out of her cigarette over the ashtray before leaning back on the cashmere pillow to begin.

“It was a Sunday afternoon and I just had my interview as a stewardess for the airport. My car picked up a backroad out of town I thought might be a shortcut way home. It turns out I simply ended up in the wrong direction. And what else? My tire pops from a rusty nail...”

_Abby lets out a gasp once she hears a fatal popping sound of her tire hitting a small object on the road. She parks her convertible slowly to a stop on the shoulder of the road with the faint continuous hissing of deflated rubber. Abby angrily slams her hands on the steering wheel before climbing out of the car._

_Her front left tire is flat. Beside it, Abby picks up a bent railroad nail lying next to her pair of moleskin boots. Scowling, she throws the piece of metal onto a patch of grass._

_“Do tell me you have a spare in your trunk?” a dry, aging voice speaks close behind her._

_Abby spins around to find two nuns standing in front of her and her car with two different kinds of facial expressions. The first nun, the one who spoke, appears older than her sister. She has straw yellow hair, judgmental brown eyes, and a stiffening structure. She glares onto Abby’s startled, confused stance. The second nun, a much younger, delicate woman with worrisome blue eyes and quivering lips, seems to be holding her breath from crying with no particular reason. She looks so pure, so angelic, she reminds Abby of a dandelion._

_“Hello? Do you speak any english, or are you one of them foreign types?” The older nun snaps, tilting her head high with her nose up._

_“I beg your pardon?” Abby speaks, brows furrowed._

_“Ah, She speaks,” the nun went on._

_“It appears you have a flat tire,” spoke the second nun._

_Abby nods slowly and watches the first nun place a hand on her chest._

_“I am Sister Jude Martin, and that pathetic wilted flower over there is, Sister Mary Eunice.”_

_“Charmed,” Abby says, watching Sister Mary Eunice curtsy with a shy bow of her head._

_“Like I’ve said before, do you have a spare tire in the trunk seat of your car? We can help you, if you allow us to, for God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”_

_“Psalm 46:1,” Sister Mary Eunice recited happily._

_Abby snorts and thinks both women are crazy. She steps behind her car and opens the trunk. The spare tire is hidden beneath the convertible’s built-in hatch. She pulls it out and steadies it on the ground while Sister Mary Eunice bends low on her knees to open a toolbox set she brought along._

_“I can’t thank you enough for this. The both of you,” Abby speaks softly._

_“Humankind trespass our property all the time,” Sister Jude replies. “They always have some reason to nosy around our home here at Briarcliff Manor...”_

_Abby gazes past Sister Jude through several branches of trees to see the back of a large, gloomy brick building with blackened windows._

_“Your school looks nice,” Abby compliments._

_“It’s not a school, silly girl,” Sister Jude rolls her eyes while Sister Mary Eunice stiffles a giggle while loosening the lug nuts and jacking the car up. “It’s an asylum. We run an institution for the insane.”_

_Abby blinks, lost for words. Hearing faint footsteps coming towards her, she looks over to find a young woman carrying a stack of books against her bosom with her cardigan draped over her shoulders..._

“And that’s when Wendy comes in, gorgeous as ever,” Abby finished off with a sigh, picking up her glass of lemonade left on the tray to moist her mouth.

“Oh stop it,” Wendy blushed beside her, waving her hand with the cigarette.

“What a funny story,” Carol spoke up. 

“What happened to the nuns?” Therese asked.

“Well, they fixed my tire - Sister Mary Eunice did, because Jude was mostly doing the talking. Barking orders like, ‘Mary, do this,’ ‘Mary, do that.’ You could tell the poor girl was frightened of the old bat.”

“Then Abby drove me home, but I invited her to stay for dinner,” Wendy explained, reaching over the couch to take Abby’s hand with hers. “We had scallop potatoes that night. And I read her some Edgar Allan Poe...”

Carol laughed softly at the two lovebirds eyeing admiringly at each other and was glad for her friend that she had finally found somebody since the redhead steakhouse owner turned out to be the biggest flop ever. 

Therese caught Carol looking at her from the corner of the room and smiled a little, unsure of what would come next.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sort of doing a crossover between Carol & American Horror Story: Asylum, because I thought it might be interesting and fun to put the Wendy character. The time eras for both fandoms fit close enough. Plus I loved Sarah Paulson’s Lana Winters love interest from season 2 of AHS... this will be a two chapter piece for  
> sure :,)


End file.
